Fear is an instinctive, involuntary emotion that is experienced by every individual, whether it is fear of a situation, a person or an animate object. Fear is the body's response to prevent danger and pain when such stimuli are plausible. An individual can fear a multitude of things such as insects, heights, strangers, certain situations, and so on. Physiologic changes occur in the body while an individual is experiencing fear ranging from increased heart rate to widened eyes and dilated pupils. From an evolutionary perspective, the emotion of fear stems from past encounters with the feared and thus formed the concept of the necessity to maintain a distance with the feared to prevent harm to oneself. Fear can be both maladaptive and adaptive in terms of survival, mate selection and reproductive success.
I have an immense fear of snakes, and even a mere glance at a photo of a snake will elicit physiologic changes of fear in my body. While walking around a pet shop, I walked into the marine animal section with the fish, and right next to the marine section was the reptile/amphibian section, and unknowingly, I walked past a snake habitat tank. Immediately, I got the chills, backed up a couple steps and my whole body froze. My eyes widened, my heart raced and my breaths became quick and shallow. It felt as if the blood had suddenly drained from my head and my palms began to sweat. My eyes were glued on the snake in fear, and a thousand images of the snake escaping ran through my head. The amygdala, part of the limbic system in the brain is responsible for the emotion of fear. When in fear, an individual's sympathetic nervous system, in charge of the fight-or-flight response is activated, sending hormones (epinephrine/adrenaline) thr...
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...ptive and maladaptive components, meaning that as adaptive, the emotion increases survival rate, mate selection and reproductive success, while maladaptive decreases. Fear is adaptive in that the early hunter-gatherers often picked vegetation from fields overflowing with snakes, venomous or not, and were required to develop a keen sense to snakes that could jeopardize their survival as well as their offsprings'. Fear of snakes allowed the hunter-gatherers to dodge venomous snake bites, allowing potential mate selection and reproduction in the future. Fear of a situation could potentially be maladaptive because it may cause an individual to not want to leave their comfort zone and meet new people, decreasing their chances of mate selection and reproduction. In all aspects, fear warns ourselves of potential danger and harm, allowing us to better survive and reproduce.
Fear is an everyday emotion that the human race must face, and it can bring out the best and worst of us, but its how we choose to deal with it that truly defines us.
College is hard, scary, and stressful especially with children involved. I think it is a good thing I went to college when I did otherwise, I would be stuck in the same minimum wage job that I have had for the past year. It is going to be hard and stressful but the truth is that were all scared. It is just a matter of pushing myself into getting where I want to be. My main fear with college is mainly flunking out, it is scary but, it is also achievable. I thought to myself, “Hey, if my best friend can go to college then why I can I not”. There was three things that pushed me into going to college. Those are: getting a better job so I can spoil my children, continuing my education, and to be a role model for my children.
One of the most complex emotions in existence, fear is the primary emotion that triggers any kind of change, as it is capable of linking with any existing emotion to create entirely different lives upon lives. For any change that happens, fear is always present to turn the tide whichever way it pleases.
Our emotions are said to be the most subjective of all our biological components. It seems that we have a difficult time grasping them, and an even more difficult time controlling them. Fear seems to be one of the most challenging of our human emotions when it comes to trying to subdue it ourselves. When we see a creepy bug, or are caught off guard by an extremely loud noise, we jump before even thinking about it. It seems like a normal reaction, and then after the initial surprise we can assure ourselves that we are still alive, everything is fine. But what about people who have abnormal reactions to fears? People who develop a phobia that is not so easy to subdue?
Have you ever had something ever get to you or make you you scared? That is called fear and tons an tons of people have different fears. Fear is an emotion that makes you feel afraid or something is frighten. Some fears many include spiders, clowns and even death. ‘’Fear Prompts Teens To Act Impulsively’’ by Laura Sanders, ‘’Stress for Success’’ by Alison Pearce, and ‘’And Uncomfortable Bed’’ By Guy Maupassant all explain the idea of fear.
First, there must be an understanding that there is a difference between normal fear and a phobia. The two are very similar, but they have a distinct characteristic and description that sets the two apart. A normal fear is a feeling that everyone can fear and something very simple and is not complex to the mind. A normal fear is related to any common and daily situations that can occur in one’s life. It is normal and helpful to feel fear in dangerous and nerve-racking situations; this experience is quite normal. Some examples of a situation like this can be waiting for a grade on a test you weren’t quite ready for, driving a car for the first time, or even taking part in a rough contact sport where you can get hurt. To humans, fear is something that is adaptive. Being adaptive, it is serving us to protect us. Being adaptive can be seen as a “fight-or-flight” response. This means tha...
Fear: an unpleasant emotion caused by the notion that someone or something is perilous, liable to cause pain, or a threat.
Fear is an emotion that can control our everyday thoughts and actions. Fear keeps people from
In the words of Bertrand Russell, “Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom” (Russell). Fear causes many problems in our lives. Fear influences many of a person’s actions and decisions. However, people usually regret the decisions or actions they made out of fear. Also, these actions and decisions can cause problems for those people in their future. Fear is a harmful emotion, for it clouds people’s judgement, disables them from taking action, and causes them to make decisions that they will regret later.
Fear can be caused by many different things and can be a result of different situations. “Fear is a primary emotion. It is an evolved and adaptive physiological response that occurs automatically in response to particular
Most people are afraid of snakes but are not petrified by them to the point they are fainting. The video Wired for Fear by California Science Center shows that the amygdala is the threat center always on the look-out for danger. For example, when someone sees a snake or something that looks like a snake, their amygdala is activated. Most people would freeze and their heart rate would go up. If it were a real snake, they would slowly back away, or if it was not a snake, they would calm down. A person with ophidiophobia
Fear is something that has helped keep mankind and other animals alive. I believe that many of our fears have been caused by evolution. Take, for instance, some peoples fear of snakes. Many individuals hold a fear of them. For some their fear could have been triggered by an experience they had as a child, like stepping on a snake while playing in the backyard. However, for most individuals they do not have an actual reason for their fear other than their distaste for how they look and feel. Why could that be? Well at one-time human beings survived mostly outdoors without the protection of heavy duty shelters and were susceptible to snakes and other creatures. Not having scientists around to classify whether a snake was venomous or not, humans just became fearful of them all and either avoided or killed the snakes they came across. This behavior would then be passed on to their offspring and would continue down the line until individuals began to realize that snakes were not the biggest predator out there and their fears began to shrink. Nevertheless, that fear still lingers in the back of many individual’s minds and dictates how they react to snakes whether in real life or on screen. The evolution of fear is what has kept mankind alive and what will continue to keep mankind alive. Without it we would probably jump off that bridge with our friends or pet that cute little shark we see in the water next to
This paper is focused on how fear as a subject is being perceived by many as a dominant and primitive human emotion. An uncontrollable energy that’s exists and created within every individual, which is directed towards an object or a given situation that does not present an actual danger. The individual then analyzes that the fear is contradictory and thus cannot help the reaction. Gradually, the phobia aims to build up and aggravate as the fear of fear response takes hold. Eventually they distinguish their fear responses as negative, and go out of their way to avoid those reactions. ‘Fear is derived as a basic feeling and therefore created by us – it is not something we have, but something we do. The principle of fear is to keep us safe.’
Fear is a human emotion everyone dislikes. Fear is in every person with no exception. It can be difficult problem to solve. We can overcome our fears by challenging ourselves by analyzing fear and developing a growth mindset.
Fear is the reason why students are writing an essay for a class. Fear is the anxiety of receiving a failing mark to a final exam that we never show to our parents. Fear is the uneasiness that we feel when our parents learn about a stupid thing that could make them disappointed. Fear is the inability to walk to a dark corridor after watching a horror movie. Fear is the negative state of mind that hinders us from doing anything. These are how we usually describe fear, danger, and suffering, the feeling of uneasiness that overwhelms our body. Understanding the true nature of fear gives us purpose and motivation to do better.